Polar Sounds by Cheryl Beer

The award-winning environmental sound artist Cheryl Beer explores her latest project 'Polar Sounds'

- Written by Cheryl Beer

In 2022, I was selected to join a group of sound artists from around the world, to join the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity in Germany, working remotely with recordings made by scientists at Antarctica. I was sent the recording of a single killer whale, calling out from the melting ice caps. The very notion of this moved me deeply and I began researching what life is like for a pod of killer whales.

When together, they communicate in a series of whistles for closeness; It's a high pitched private way of communicating, as the soundwaves do not travel far. Better known, they also use pulse calls. Each pod has its own dialect - the recording I was working with, a pulse call, reaches for miles across the ocean to connect with its own pod. What message would this killer whale be sending out from the melting ice caps to its community - or even, to us? The answer for me, is simple and yet poignant, a warning, a siren, a prayer?

Due to my hearing impairments, it was difficult for me to work with the sound of the whale, so I decided to convert the recording into visual soundwaves. After all, it is the soundwaves that make the killer whales whistles and pulses possible. When I looked at the pulse call of the killer whale visually, I could see that what appears as a whole sound to us, is in fact, a number varying vibrations at different levels. I edited these into distinct sounds or voices, if you like, and used these to compose the sound art in my studio. The sound recording below gives you more of an insight and enables you to hear the piece.